


Through His Flesh Which Is Full Of Beauty

by blessedharlot



Series: Poems To Love By [1]
Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Anal Sex, Comfort No Hurt, Erotic Poetry, Fellatio, Frotting, M/M, Poetry, Post Smoke and Iron, Sex, deep background Jess and Morgan, quick write, trauma recovery - heavy on recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 17:06:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18211136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blessedharlot/pseuds/blessedharlot
Summary: Right as things stand right now - later that last day of book 4 - The Gay Dads just need some comforting mooshy hawt sex to celebrate still being alive. And I think it’s clear that Wolfe’s dramatic enough to know a dangerous amount of erotic poetry. So here we are.There’s several big immediate questions still unanswered at the end of book 4. I’ve left most answers mysterious so you can plug in what you like.





	Through His Flesh Which Is Full Of Beauty

Christopher Wolfe sat at a tiny desk in the bedroom he shared with his beloved. 

The day had been excruciatingly long, and exhausting. The world that met tonight’s sunset was a drastically different one than had met the sunrise today. 

It would be a long time before all the repercussions of their actions were fully known. So many changes, so many plans. So much tumult, and much more to come. Even now, when he should rest, it was difficult to extricate himself from the work still required of him. Demands beckoned from this desk, as they would again from other desks for some time to come… from a certain desk at the Serapeum. Even someday soon, from the desk behind the study door, across the hall... still locked since that day he’d been taken away.

But for now - for this moment - there was some measure of serenity. The time for battle and debate had passed. All that would be accomplished today was complete, and it would have to be enough. The children were secured for the night... some closer by than others. Chris and Nic’s greatest flight risk - the mourning Jess - was ensconced on the foldout couch just a few feet away in the front room, with Morgan. The younger couple had no lock to rest behind, so Chris and Nic’s lock would have to do for privacy. They had said their goodnights, and the two couples had their space, their safety, their quietude for a night of rest. 

For all the miraculous joy and impossible pain, for now Chris simply sat, grateful to be showered and cleaned, and wrapped in a red silk robe that smelled of Nic. 

For this moment - for this blessed night - he was home, with his love, and all was right.

The hiss of running water stopped just then, from the other side of the bedroom wall. Ambient sounds floated on the air… of Nic moving closer to the bedroom, closer to bed, closer to him. The thought filled Chris with a fresh, new warmth. He took off his reading glasses and placed them on top of the open blank in front of him.

Soon the bathroom door opened, and Niccolo Santi stood there, wearing only a towel around his shoulders as he scrubbed the last trails of water from his hair.

Chris let himself luxuriate in the sight. There was always an easy grace about Niccolo Santi at leisure. Swells of muscle under tawny skin. Light, soft patches of fur alternating with sleek sinewy joints. Tattoos and scars and beautiful geography better known to Chris than any other place on earth.

Chris found himself opening his mouth, and English tumbled out.

“‘When I am sad and weary, when I think all hope has gone… when I walk along High Holborn, I think of you. With nothing on.’” His own voice had gone thick as he finished the verse. 

Nic’s eyes softly rolled up and closed, as he sighed contentedly.

Chris watched his thigh muscles softly shift as Nic crossed to him. Chris stood, and threw his arms around his love, lips instantly parting for tongues that carried them both farther home to one another. Before he knew it, the robe was gone, peeled away. Hands reached without thought to touch each familiar surface, every angle and curve of back and neck in turn. Fingers smoothed hair, breath found skin, and each point of contact reclaimed some part of each other’s flesh that they had just last night prepared to lose forever. 

Nic pulled back slightly, and groaned as though Chris were a particularly delicious meal. Chris instantly covered his mouth and shushed him. 

“The children in the other room do not need to guess what we’re doing,” he said. 

Nic scoffed. “They know full well what we’re doing. Or what we’re capable of, at the very least.” Nic drew his hand up and caressed Chris’ cheek. “Under the circumstances, I hope they’re up to something similar themselves.”

“Well, so do I, of course,” he said as he leaned into Nic’s hand. “But I certainly don’t need to picture it, thank you. And vice versa. Keep your voice down when it’s doing something besides talking.”

“Yes, sir,” Nic grinned.

They kissed again, and slow, deep, languorous waves of symmetry swept over them.

Chris came up for air, and Nic went for the exposed side of his neck. 

“‘Our kisses,’” Chris sighed. “‘Oh… our kisses, Rhodope…’”

“Mhm, kisses.”

“‘Let us steal, and slip, with furtive ease, like burglars into bed.’”

“If you honestly wish me to be quiet,” Nic grinned wickedly, “you’ll have to stop quoting poetry at me. You know what that does.”

“Why do you think I’m doing it?”

“Not playing fair tonight, then?” Nic’s eyes sparkled. “Well, I’ll keep that in mind.”

There had been scores of poetry, in the before times. Christopher had long prided his quick tongue and quick thought during lovemaking, reaching for a catalog of erotic and homoerotic verse he’d carefully found over the years. It seemed the only real skill he had at seducing Nic… who had long ago - and quite frequently - made clear it worked for him. Chris once had verses to arouse, distract, evoke bawdy laughter, and generally ply Nic toward most any amorous mood. 

Since he’d come back from the dead, Chris had been quieter in intimate moments, often not speaking in such a vulnerable state, or only saying Nic’s name. He had sometimes worried the nerve pathways he used for the activity so precious to him had burned away, shriveled into nothing. 

And he knew Nic had missed it, though he’d never said so.

But these days... these days, when they were alone, he could feel the connection between his voice and Nic’s touch regrowing itself. It carried itself gently down his nerves, warming and greening his every electric vein like the unfurling of a new vine from seed.

Today, exhausted as he was... with the rawness of the world’s new messy beginnings hanging in the air like petrichor… with his children all safe enough… with Nic, here, and his again. Alive and vibrant and real and naked before him. With all that, he thought he could speak every verse in and out of the Codex as he and Nic took turns ravishing each other. 

Nic pushed him fully onto the bed, that rugged jaw zeroing in toward the center of him. 

Looking up to meet Chris’ gaze, Nic lowered his mouth down to take Chris’ erect tip into a wet, bobbing embrace. Chris leaned back on his arms and let his whole existence press itself to Nic’s wet, soft tongue.

After several minutes, the French came idly, without care or notice of who he was speaking for, as he lost himself in Nic’s warm throat. 

“‘Now it’s my turn to give head,’” Chris murmured. “‘To go down on your hot, cherished cock/Suck away until I am well-fed/On heavenly milk, divine phosphorous-’”

“No,” Nic said suddenly and firmly, as if discarding a strategy for battle.

Nic replaced the heat of his throat with the heat of his stomach, and pressed his whole torso against Chris as he wobbled on weakened arms. 

Having put his hips where he wanted them, Nic left them there and leaned his shoulders back to find their cocks close. With deft movement, Nic had already found the bottle of oil and now put a slick hand around both shafts, and held them there.

Nic knew exactly how stimulating Chris found this activity.

“Oh! Now who’s not… not playing fair,” Chris said through half-closed eyes.

“You’re about to collapse unconscious. Tonight will have to be about quality, not quantity. No use belaboring the point.” Nic wrapped both hands around their erections and firmly stroked up and down. The dual pulsing of the two shafts reached down the center of Chris’ spine and shook him further toward ecstasy. 

“My point likes being belabored by you,” Chris smiled.

“The quality of that pun is beneath you,” Nic said, his most private smile lighting up his face. “And is clear evidence that you should already be asleep.” Every easy, masterful turn of Nic's wrist lifted Chris’ spirit closer to the cusp.

Chris leaned his head forward onto Nic’s chiseled shoulder, the both of them as still and quivering taut with lust as sculpted Rodin figures. Between whimpers, Chris whispered fast and low in German into Nic’s ear.

“‘For him only/I look out the window/Only for him do I go/Out of the house./His tall walk…’”

Chris gasped as Nic moved one hand up to brush the heads of their cocks together, circling.

“‘His noble figure,’” Chris panted. “‘His mouth's smile/His eyes' power/And his mouth's/Magic flow/His handclasp/and ah! his kiss!’”

Chris reached his mouth toward Nic’s but overshot as pleasure consumed him, throwing his head back in quiet joy. For several moments he panted quickly, occupying that silent space where he and Nic alone were all that existed in an exalted universe. 

As the waves passed, he felt Nic’s lips on his chest, and he let his cheek fall to meet the silk of Nic’s hair. 

As he caught his breath, his mouth opened again.

“‘And kiss him, As I would wish, At his kisses, I should die!’” he whispered.

“No,” Nic insisted softly. “No talk of that tonight.”

“Only the little death, beloved,” Chris replied, reaching for his cheek. “Only the little ones that bring us back to life.”

They reached for each other again and embraced, not heeding the small mess Chris had made between them. As Nic embraced him fiercely, the bed creaked. Chris felt his hair swing across Nic’s lips as he turned toward the sound.

Nic watched as concern undoubtedly flashed across Chris’ face, and squinted at him.

“You,” Nic said, “are impossible.” His face and words were harsh but his tone the quietest whisper Chris could imagine. Nic stood and got a pillow, and dropped it on the ground near the bed.

As Chris suspected his plan, a shiver of delight coursed through him. He hoped his smile was as devilish as it was possible for a smile to be, as he held Nic’s gaze and slid to the floor in front of him.

Now eye-level with Nic’s erection, Chris parted his lips and craned for it. But Nic slipped to the side and dropped down to his knees as well.

“Denied my prize?” Chris asked with a frown. 

“One treasure traded for another,” Nic replied, as he tilted a hand onto Chris’ hip and slid behind him. “We’re home, Christopher,” he whispered in his ear.

Home. Chris sighed in satisfaction. Home meant that tenderness they didn’t pursue elsewhere. It meant the deep ease and familiarity required to find that vulnerable place, more vulnerable than ever now.

Chris didn’t even have to work at it anymore, though. Not tonight. No rituals to feel safe. No effort required. Just the sanctuary of slipping into Nic’s penetrating embrace.

Hip spoke directly to hip, cock to sheath, breath to breath. Rhythms that started deep inside carried them both, and as it built, Chris was vaguely aware of willing his bracing arms not to press that rhythm into the bedframe.

The words came in familiar Greek this time.

“‘Said Myrtias…’”

Nic groaned curtly in Chris’ ear. Chris knew he recognized the poem. 

“‘... a Syrian student in Alexandria…’”

An old favorite, it had echoed inside many of the library lodgings of their youth. It was a love letter stretched between them across years… many quick stolen moments and longer lingering liaisons.

“‘...in the reign of Augustus Constans and Augustus Constantius; (in part a pagan, and in part a Christian)...’”

Chris knew how far gone Nic must be in his passion when he had no clever remark to make about Christian parts rutting pagan parts. He merely thrust into Chris now with a delectable lack of mercy, a rumble growing inside of him.

"’Fortified by theory and study,” Chris continued, out of breath from joy, “I shall not fear my passions like a coward... I shall give my body to sensual delights, to enjoyments dreamt-of…’”

Nic’s hands gripped his waist even tighter, and Chris felt his love’s breath hotter and faster against his own shoulder.

“‘...to the most daring amorous desires…’”

Faster. Hotter.

“‘... to the lustful impulses of my blood,” Chris purred. “Without any fear, for whenever I-’”

Nic’s growl sprung up from a deeper place, louder. Chris lithely twisted around, grinning, and flung his hand back, shocked to realize he’d actually found his foolish mark. His palm found enough of Nic’s mouth to make an immediate difference in volume. And even as Nic tilted into the height of his climax, most of his deep rumble of pleasure reverberated into Chris’ hand.

Soon, the growl abated to a moan, and his rhythm and breathing began to slow. 

Chris felt Nic’s hand move instinctively to Chris’ chest, and he took it with his own - hand over hand over heart - as he laid more of his now motionless weight on the bed.

Drowsy with lust and joy and a deep fatigue he no longer had enough motivation to fight, Chris felt himself begin to float away. For a moment Nic was gone. But before his lingering warmth had faded entirely, he was back again, running some towel or another across them both.

Chris lifted up just enough to collapse back into Nic, and soon somehow they were off their knees, laying down in a similar position, cradled together. Chris’ pillow beneath his head, with the blanket covering them, Nic’s breath slowly softening on his neck. 

Chris could no longer remain entirely awake, but he caressed what he could reach of Nic as long as he could -- forearms and biceps and shoulders and thighs and some portion of that beloved hair long enough to grasp at through Chris’ sprawled locks.

His Nic. Warm and alive and ready to keep fighting. Tomorrow.

For tonight, heaven still humming through him, Christopher floated into a sweet, dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> The “I think of you with nothing on” bit is from “Celia, Celia” by Adrian Mitchell. “Our kisses” is a difficult to reference piece from Paulos. The German piece is Goethe. “Said Myrtias” is from the poem “Dangerous Things” and the title of the story is from “He Came to Read”, both from C.P. Cavafy. “Divine phosphorous” is from a VERY difficult to reference poem called “A Lover’s Cock”? By Verlaine? I think. Tough to find.
> 
> I hope you enjoy, my friends!


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